Kaplods, darling, I wish I could hug you tight. I hate reading that someone as intelligent & self-aware & empathic & giving as yourself has been sent into a tailspin by this writer's vitriol. I hate hearing that you don't like yourself & feel hated by others & even questioning whether you "deserve to exist."

My God. I thought we went through all this & came out the other side decades ago ... that because one's skin is a certain color, or one loves one's own sex, or one is female or male or something in between, or one's religion involves bowing toward Mecca ... one STILL HAS THE BASIC RIGHT TO EXIST. Others can't simply erase or edit us out of their happy little picture of life as they think it ought to be.

But I know reasoning & facts are a cold comfort at times like this. You've been wounded in battle. You need to recuperate. Be good to yourself. Wrap yourself up in a blanket. Drink some hot tea. Seek out some cuddling from your husband. Read something inspiring. In particular, read something by an African-American woman, if you can, because the experience is **somewhat** analogous. There were Black women who looked in the mirror once & realized others in the culture thought they, too, were ugly & out to be kept out of sight & had no reason to exist. And they suffered tremendous mental & psychological pain because of this. Some incredibly moving writing came out of this. It may help you to re-read some of it, to see how others coped with feelings of self-hatred & of realizing some in the culture wished to see them utterly erased.